by Kim Golden
The kids are all in the living room, except Max who is as full as a tick and still sleeping. Sometimes one of them pops into the dining room and asks for permission to play a game on Brian's Xbox or to change the music that no one can hear anyway. I've jumped up several times to help Jane in the kitchen. Each time she asks me why I am so jumpy and I say the same thing: "You know why!" And my voice gets more snappish each time. I hear it and regret it and apologize, even though I am seething.
I. Hate. Melissa.
I hate that she is the recipient of Evan's slow smiles and the keeper of shared memories that can actually be discussed in public. Jane keeps me occupied with helping bring desserts into the dining room and making coffee and tea. Melissa squeaks, "No coffee for me! I'll stick to tea—green tea if you have it." I consider going into Jane's backyard, grabbing a handful of grass and stuffing it in the tea ball. Would Melissa even notice? But, I just pretend to simper and say, "I'm sure there's green tea in the kitchen."
By the time we've filled everyone's beverage requests and reclaimed our seats, the kids are anxious for their Thanksgiving cupcakes and the adults all want to dig into Jane's pumpkin pie. Plates of dessert circulate around the table and, when there's a generous serving in front of all of us, Brian suggests we all say what we are thankful for this year. Jane flashes me a look that tells me to go steady. I've already decided I will say something vague. I am usually the one who says I am so thankful for my friends, and I am, even if it doesn't sound like it. If I didn't have Jane and Brian, I think my life would fall apart. I am grateful for Jane's caution, even when I can't heed it myself.
Brian starts with, "I'm so thankful for my beautiful wife and our crazy kids. And I am grateful that we can all sit around this table, again, another year."
And his loopy grin sets the tone. Jenny says much the same thing, though she stresses how much she loves her girlfriends and how we have all become one another's family. Many enthusiastic nods follow. And then it's Evan's turn and he strokes my hand under the table—finally! A sign of reassurance that quells all my doubts. I relax for the first time all evening, waiting to hear what he'll say or do. Will he infer that there's a change about to take place? Will he play it safe?
But then he lets go of my hand and laughs a little nervously before he says, "This Thanksgiving is a very different one for me…and Melissa." Jane looks at me, then Melissa. I follow her lead and see how Melissa is practically beaming. She has a ridiculous look on her face—all wide eyes and pursed lips almost like a duck. "We've had a rough year, but last night we had some news that took us both by surprise."
"Stop playing coy, Evan." Dennis pulls a smirk and then laughs. "Spit it out."
The air feels wrong. Why has he let go of my hand? I reach for his under the table, but he's widened the gap between us and my hand lands on the edge of his chair.
"Okay, well, to make a long story short, we're going to have a baby," he says it so quickly that I think I've misunderstood.
The blood drains from my face. I try to compose myself. Don't lose face, Mia, don't show a soul how fucked up all of this is. I try to smile, but my mouth is frozen. I glance around—where is the sound? But everyone is congratulating them—someone—is it Dennis?—proposes a toast, and we all agree. I don't even hear the words coming out of my mouth, but I know I am going through the motions, pretending I am happy, even when I am losing him.
He's not leaving her.
He's going to be a dad. Oh God.
I need to get out of here.
I don't even remember what excuse I made to leave early, but no one seems to care, except for Jane who makes me swear I will call her when I get home. I nod and promise I will but I don't want to talk to anyone. I walk in the wet cold and tell myself this is all a really bad dream, or a practical joke. Fucking Melissa. He told me they weren't sleeping together anymore. He told me he hated touching her. I believed him, sucked in every word he said. Don't think about it, Mia. Just keep walking. That's the mantra pounding in my head as I battle the bitter wind and icy snowflakes scratching my skin.
By the time I reach the entrance to my apartment building, I am soaked through. I mutter a quick "Happy Thanksgiving" at my doorman and rush past him, before he can engage me in a long conversation. Today, I can't stand the thought of hearing him tell me about his wife and kids, who've decided to celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow when he's not on duty, so they can all sit down as a family. I have no family. I have no one. I. Have. No. One. I hate my life… In the elevator, I think about calling Evan and ripping him a new asshole. But what would be the point? It wouldn't change the fact that he lied to me. It wouldn't make him say he'd changed his mind.
The worst part of it is that, if he were to show up now I would forgive him, because I love him. I have become one of those awful women you see on Jerry Springer or Maury Povich who would slap a cheater and still take his skanky ass back. And since I am the one he cheated with…I am no better than him. And no one likes the mistress. God. I am a bitch.
In my apartment, I strip away the tight skirt, the stupid cashmere sweater that went to waste, the La Perla lingerie that cost way too much and was never even glimpsed. If it all hadn't eaten such a big hole in my credit balance, I would just throw it all away. I don't want anything that will remind me of my spectacularly abysmal fall.
I dump everything in my laundry bin. Then I scrub away all the traces of makeup and stare at my naked face in the mirror. No one would believe I was thirty-five. I look too young. I still get carded when I go to the state store. But here I am—35 and alone, essentially dumped, though he hasn't said it yet. I am not going to stick around another year, stealing an hour here or there with Evan and fucking furtively in the backseat of cars, or in friends' bathrooms, or trying to have a night at my place when I know he'll just shower and slip back into his life with Melissa. All that will happen is I will feel like a whore.
The only thing that will help me sleep tonight is Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and It's a Wonderful Life. I put on my pajamas and fuzzy slippers, scrape my hair into a messy ponytail, and then trudge into the bedroom. I throw myself on the bed and turn to grab my iPad. I download my security blanket of a film from iTunes and start crying, before the opening credits have even finished rolling.
This is going to be a long fucking night.
When my mother calls to wish me a happy thanksgiving, I've cried so much my eyes are sore and my throat raw. This year, my mother is in Mexico with some of her church friends. They're all empty-nesters—no children living at home, their adult children either single (me), married and with their in-laws, or otherwise engaged. In the background, I can hear my mother's friends cooing and laughing—there must be a sale somewhere or…no, a baby nearby. They've gone into grandma mode. And my mother, anxious to get back to them, only halfheartedly listens to me recount what happened.
She knows I've been seeing Evan, she even warned me to stay away from him and called him a smarmy bastard. It doesn't matter that she is close to his parents. Even when we were teenagers and Evan used to torment me by running hot and cold and leaving me confused and breathless, my mother thought he was bad news. Now, she clucks at the right moment but without much sympathy, I know.
And when I finally give her a chance to speak, she says what I don't want to hear, "Well, honey, what did you expect? He's married for God's sake!"
And then she does the very thing I asked her not to do—she begins telling her friends about my sad state, though not mentioning Evan's name or marital status. Not that it matters. They probably heard her scream "he's married for god's sake" anyway.
All of the old women say the right words—the poor thing, oh what was she doing with a cad like that, didn't she know he was trouble? None of them touch the subject of him being married or his wife being pregnant. They gloss over that tiny little glitch and I wish I could hug them all and smell their lilac powder skin. One of them—it sounds like Bertha Gallagher, who is a busybody and always thinks she knows best for ev
eryone, even though her advice is usually just wrong, wrong, wrong—suggests that I go out of town for a while and clear my mind.
My mother latches on to this and rolls with it: "You know what you should do, honey? You should go up to Nana's house and recharge your spirit. You need some country air."
"I was thinking more of jumping on a plane and going to Paris."
"Do you even have a passport?"
"I do. It might be expired though."
"Well, see? There you go—you don't need a passport to go to Vermont."
"It's cold there now."
"When did that ever stop you from going there?"
"But there's no one there now…"
"All the better," my mom quips. "And you can place some nice flowers on Nana's grave, go to that diner we like so much, and eat chocolate chip pancakes."
"I don't know…"
"What have you got to lose? You could even work from there—Nana had a broadband connection installed, before she got sick."
"I don't know, it would feel creepy being there without Nana."
"Don't be silly. You just go there and make yourself feel better."
"Okay, Mom. You win."
"And if that bastard calls you?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't answer. Don't even give him the satisfaction."
2 On the Road: Mia
It's still dark when I leave. The sun hasn't properly risen, but the sky is still clotted with clouds threatening snow. I just want to get on the road before I can think this through too much. If I think too much, indecision will confuse me and send me reeling back for the security of my apartment. If I stay, I will spend too much time feeling sorry for myself. I don't even want to think about how embarrassing this is. I'd somehow convinced myself he would call me and explain, but he never did. I kept replaying the entire evening in my head, trying to figure out if Evan even tried to warn me with a look or a touch that our situation had changed. But there were no signs. He let me think we were okay. He let me believe our future was set and then he made that damned announcement. No, don't think about it, Mia. This is not your fault. At least, that's what I have to tell myself as I climb into my Mini Cooper and begin heading towards I-76. Everything will feel better when I get to Vermont.
I just know it will.
It's almost embarrassing to admit it, but I've never driven alone to my grandmother's house. I've always gone with either my mother or friends. So, when I find myself lost after stupidly taking the Pennsylvania Turnpike instead of I-95, I don't even bother to get annoyed. If my mother were here, she would encourage me to take the next exit, find a diner and look for truckers—he Kings of the Road, she calls them. She never trusts anyone else's directions—unless, of course, it's a state trooper or a police officer. My mother has an almost maniacal respect for the law enforcement officers. I guess that's why she married Ernest, my second stepfather, who was a police officer in the 16th District for twenty years. He died of a heart attack two days shy of his retirement. I honestly thought my mother would find another police officer to fill the void but five years on she is still single and now she's calling herself a cougar. It's a bit embarrassing. My mother is better at finding boyfriends than I am.
I nudge the GPS—come on, do what you are supposed to do! Give me directions—but it has chosen today as the day it will fuck with me and refuse to do more than blink and make staticky hiccups. When my cell phone begins blasting Jane's personal ringtone—I chose a Katy Perry song for fun but now I am sick of it and don't remember how to change it back—I am relieved. I use my hands-free headset to answer and, before I can even say "hello", she begins talking over me.
"Are you okay? Where are you? I'm in the lobby of your building and the doorman said you left ages ago!"
"I'm in my car," I tell her, pleased with myself that I haven't mentioned being lost. "I'm taking a road trip."
"You're lost, aren't you?"
"No! I know exactly where I'm going."
"Are you seriously telling me that you've left town, because of Evan's announcement?"
"What do you think? It seemed like a good idea. I need some distance from him."
"I can't believe they announced it right then and there," Jane says glumly. "I knew something was up, but I didn't think it was that…"
"Neither did I," I admit. "At least it explains why Melissa was so pleased with herself and not scarfing down alcohol."
"How are you? Really?"
"I feel like shit. He didn't even try to prepare me…"
"He's such an ass!"
"Jane…"
"No, you listen to me, Mia—he's a rat-bastard and you are so much better off without him in your life. Brian and I were talking about it last night." In the background I can hear Max asking for more scrambled eggs and what sounds like the Power Puff Girls. Jane speaks to him in a calm, low voice and then she sends him off. "But you don't need to run away."
"I'm not running away," I insist. "I'm just going to Vermont to clear my head."
"What are you going to do there? It's freezing there this time of year."
"It's freezing in Philly too," I counter. "I just want a change of scenery. And I need to get my head together, figure out what I want."
"You don't need to be in Vermont to do that. You could do that here."
"No, I can't. I'm just going to my grandmother's house, take it easy, eat some pancakes…"
"Pancakes?"
"They are famous for maple syrup in Vermont," I remind her.
"Aren't you going to be lonely?"
"Maybe." I take an exit for the next rest stop. So far, this route doesn't seem to be getting me any closer to Vermont. And I don't want to go to Pittsburgh or Erie. I need to head north. The rest stop has one of those 24-hour diners. I hope it will have good coffee. I'm like Max—a plate of scrambled eggs would be good. When I left, I didn't even bother to eat breakfast. I park in one of the empty spots closest to the diner's entrance and sit there.
"You still there?"
"Yeah, I am."
"Mia, you know this isn't the end of the world."
"No, it just feels like it for me though." I let out a long sigh. "I thought I would have what you and I Brian have. I didn't think I would end up being one of those pathetic women who runs around with someone else's husband. I never wanted that."
"I know, Sweetie…you just went about it the wrong way."
"Everyone knows… don't they?"
"I don't know, Mia…I think Jenny suspected something was up, but she never said anything."
I turn off the motor and watch the people in the diner going through the motions of their lives. "I gotta go. I'll call you when I get to Vermont." And then I hang up, before Jane can say anything else. I tread carefully. There are still patches of dirty snow and black ice on the asphalt. This isn't how my Black Friday was supposed to be. I am in the middle of nowhere. I should be working on copy for a client. I need coffee. Just breathe, Mia. Breathe.
In the diner, I chose a booth by the window, even though there is nothing inspiring about the view. The morning light is still so gray, it looks as though someone has smeared a dirty cloth across the sky. My waitress, a bored-looking teenager with greasy hair and pimply skin, brings me a cup of coffee and says morosely, "Your food'll be right up."
I nod and wonder what her life here must be like. We are close enough to Philadelphia that you can still get all the local radio stations, but far enough away that getting there feels like more of a chore than it is worth. Her eyes slide over me, before she heads over to a trio of truckers filling one of the diner's many booths. My phone begins to vibrate and Beyoncé's voice blares from the tiny speaker. I grab the phone and press talk as quickly as possible without even seeing who is calling. I don't need to. It's his ringtone.
"I was just at your building," Evan says, sounding like nothing has changed between us. I can almost hear him smiling through the phone. "Your doorman said you were in a rush."
"What do you want, Evan?
"
"I'm thinking you and I should meet, discuss things."
"What's there to discuss?" I lower my voice. "The wife you claim you no longer sleep with, is pregnant and you two are playing happy families. I get it. That means there is no you and me anymore."
"It doesn't have to be that way, Mia," he says. "We're a good fit, you know that. Melissa is…you know how it is with her."
"No, I know what you tell me. I don't know how much of that is true."
"We can still hook up. This doesn't change anything."
"It does for me," I say fiercely. The ferocity of my words startles me. I close my eyes and hold onto the feeling for a few seconds.
How can he think that I want to continue hanging around, waiting for him to give me scraps of attention? Don't I deserve better than that? And I know what the truth of it is—he thinks with his cock and not his brain. He probably never had any intention of ever leaving Melissa. He just said it to get me to continue fucking him…and the realization shames me. I am thirty-five and I have been running around with him like a dog in heat, stealing any chance I could to feel him inside me, to kiss his full lips and breathe in the clean scent of his cologne.
"Don't be difficult, Mia, you know we've got a good thing—"
"It's good for you. You've got two women giving you exactly what you want and we're the ones getting the bum deal. Well, count me out."
"I can't just leave her when she's pregnant."
"Were you ever planning on leaving her?"
"That was the plan."
"When did you find out she was pregnant?"
"On Wednesday night."
"Before, or after you came to my place?"
He doesn't say anything. Fuck…he knew when he was lying there in my bed strumming me like a violin. He knew and he let me think we had a future.